Genogram Examples: 3-Generation Samples Explained

The fastest way to learn genogram notation is to read one. Below are four worked three-generation examples — a straightforward family, a divorce and remarriage, a blended household, and one showing a medical pattern — each described symbol by symbol, along with what the finished chart actually reveals that a list of names would not. Three generations is the standard depth for good reason: it is enough to show a pattern repeating and few enough to stay readable on one page. If you need the full symbol key rather than worked examples, that is in genogram templates. To establish how two relatives are related before plotting them, use the cousin calculator.

How to read any genogram

A method that works whatever the chart shows.

Read the legend first. Conventions vary between sources, particularly for pregnancy, death and adoption. A genogram without a legend is partly guesswork.

Find the index person. They have a double outline — a square inside a square, or circle inside a circle. Everything is drawn from their perspective.

Read the structure before the emotions. Work out who is married to whom and who descends from whom first, ignoring the relationship lines entirely. Then add the emotional layer.

Read generations top to bottom, siblings left to right by birth order, oldest on the left.

Squares are male, circles female, with age or birth year inside and the name below.

Then look for the pattern. A genogram is built to make repetition visible — the same conflict, the same estrangement, the same condition appearing in more than one generation. If nothing repeats, an ordinary family tree would have served just as well.

Example 1: a standard three-generation family

The baseline layout, and the one to master before anything else.

Generation one, at the top: a square and a circle joined by a solid horizontal line — a married couple. The line carries their marriage year above it. Both shapes have a birth year inside; the grandfather's square has a cross through it, so he has died.

Generation two, below: a horizontal sibling line drops from the marriage line, with three vertical drops hanging from it. Left to right: a square, a circle, a square — an older son, a middle daughter, a younger son, in birth order.

Each of those three has their own partnership line running out sideways to a spouse, with their own children hanging below.

Generation three: five grandchildren across the three families — two, one and two.

The index person is the middle daughter's only child, marked with a double-outlined circle.

What the emotional layer adds: a double line between the index person and her maternal grandmother (close), and a jagged line between her mother and her older brother (conflict). Neither of those facts appears anywhere in a conventional family tree, and both are the sort of thing that shapes how a family actually functions.

Example 2: divorce and remarriage

The commonest complication, and the one most often drawn wrongly.

Generation two: the eldest son's marriage line carries two diagonal slashes through it, with the marriage year above and the divorce year below. That is a divorce; one slash would be a separation.

A second partnership line runs from the same square to a different circle, placed to the right of the first. His second marriage.

Two children hang from the first marriage line, and one from the second.

This is the part people get wrong: children must hang from the union they came from, not from the parent as an individual. A child drawn under the wrong marriage line makes the whole chart misleading.

Order the partnerships chronologically, first marriage on the left, later ones to the right. Readers assume this.

What the emotional layer adds: a broken line between the son and the elder of his first-marriage children (distant), and a double line to the younger. Two children of the same divorce with visibly different relationships to the same parent — which is exactly the kind of pattern the format exists to show.

Example 3: a blended household

The hardest structure to keep readable, and where layout planning matters most.

Three unions are involved. A woman with two children from a first marriage; a man with one child from a previous partnership; and one child born to the two of them.

Draw each union as its own partnership line, with its own children hanging below.

Use a dashed outline or a shaded background to group the people currently living in one household. This is the convention that makes a blended genogram legible — the household box cuts across the descent structure and shows who actually lives together, which the descent lines cannot.

Adopted or step-children are shown with dashed vertical lines from the step-parent, solid from the biological parent. A child can have both.

Expect to redraw the layout. Blended structures almost never fit on the first attempt, because the second and third unions push everything sideways. Draw the structure in pencil first — the layout considerations are covered in blended family tree template.

What it reveals: in a blended household, the emotional layer frequently does not follow the biological one. Step-siblings with a double line between them and half-siblings with a distant line is a common and revealing picture.

Example 4: a medical pattern across generations

The use with the most practical consequence.

Each shape is partly shaded where a person has a given condition — a filled lower half, or diagonal hatching. Two conditions in one person means two fills in the same shape, which is why quarters are used.

The legend lists what each fill means. Without it the shading is decorative.

In this example, the grandmother's circle is half-shaded, two of her three children's shapes carry the same fill, and three of the five grandchildren do too. All on the maternal side; the paternal side is unshaded.

What that shows is a condition appearing in three consecutive generations down one line. On a written family history that is very hard to see. Drawn out, it is obvious in about two seconds.

What it does not show is causation or risk. A genogram can demonstrate that something recurs; it cannot tell you what that means for any individual. A visible pattern is a reason to speak to a doctor, who can interpret family history properly — not a conclusion in itself.

And treat the chart carefully. A genogram carrying medical or mental-health details about living relatives is sensitive, and worth thinking about before sharing or storing casually.

The emotional layer, read properly

The layer people find hardest to interpret.

These are subjective, and that is expected rather than a flaw. Two members of the same family will draw different emotional layers over the same structure, and comparing them is often the point.

Not every pair needs a line. A genogram with a line between everyone is unreadable. Mark what carries meaning.

Date it and record whose view it is. Relationships change, and a chart that does not say when or from whose perspective it was drawn loses most of its value within a few years.

Where these examples came from

A note on how to read worked samples generally, because it affects how much weight to put on them.

These are composites, assembled to demonstrate notation rather than drawn from any real family. That is deliberate — a genogram carrying real relationship and medical detail about identifiable people is not something to publish.

Which is also the point about your own. The moment a genogram contains estrangements, mental-health information or paternity detail about living relatives, it stops being a neutral document. Think about where it is stored and who has access before you share it in a family group chat.

Real genograms are messier than examples. Gaps, uncertain dates, relationships nobody agrees on, and people whose place in the family is disputed are all normal. Mark uncertainty with a question mark rather than leaving a shape out.

Disagreement is expected. Two relatives will draw different emotional layers over the same structure, and neither is wrong — a genogram records a perspective. If you are building one collaboratively, agree the structure together and let each person annotate the relationship layer separately.

And a first attempt is rarely the final one. Most usable genograms are the second or third draft, because the layout only becomes clear once the structure is on the page.

What to do after reading these

Practical next steps, in order.

Start with structure only. Draw three generations with no emotional lines at all. Get the layout right first.

Add facts second — names, years, marriages, divorces, deaths.

Add the emotional and medical layer last. This is what turns a tree into a genogram, and doing it first is why most attempts get abandoned.

Work on paper before software. Paper is faster for finding the shape; software is better for the final version and for editing later. The tools are compared in free genogram makers.

Keep an ordinary family tree alongside it. A genogram is an interpretation, three generations deep. For lineage, dates and depth, a conventional chart is the better record — printable family tree covers those, and extended family tree template the sideways relatives a genogram includes as standard.

And write the legend as you go, not at the end, when you will have forgotten which fill meant what. If a genogram turns out to be more notation than you need, the plainer alternatives are compared in family tree chart types.

FAQ

What does a genogram example look like?

A three-generation chart of squares (male) and circles (female) joined by partnership and descent lines, with a second layer of relationship lines showing closeness, conflict or estrangement, and shading marking any medical or behavioral pattern.

How many generations should a genogram example show?

Three is standard — the index person, their parents and their grandparents. That is deep enough for a pattern to repeat and shallow enough to stay readable on one page.

How do you show divorce on a genogram?

Two diagonal slashes through the horizontal marriage line, with the marriage year above the line and the divorce year below. A single slash means separation rather than divorce.

How do you draw a blended family on a genogram?

Give each union its own partnership line with its own children hanging below, and use a dashed outline or shaded background to group everyone currently living in one household. The household grouping is what keeps it readable.

What do the shaded shapes mean?

They mark a medical or behavioral trait, with a legend explaining each fill. Partial fills — halves or quarters — let one person carry more than one trait on the same shape.

Can I read a genogram without the legend?

Only partly. The core symbols are consistent, but conventions for pregnancy, death, adoption and any shading vary between sources, so a genogram without a legend always involves some guesswork.

Read the structure, then the pattern

Every genogram is read the same way: legend first, index person second, structure third, and only then the emotional and medical layers on top. The four examples here cover the situations that account for most real charts — a straightforward family, a divorce, a blended household and an inherited pattern — and the thing they have in common is that the layout was planned before a single relationship line was drawn. Build yours in that order, keep it to three generations, and label everything. The full symbol key is in genogram templates, and the cousin calculator will name any relationship you are unsure of before you plot it.